While I agree that the new media are going to be filling some of the gaps (and already are) left by the poor job that the mass media are doing, it is still sad to watch what has happened to broadcast radio and television. There is still a kind of magic associated with picking a signal out of the air and being able to listen to or see the programming carried on that signal...and with that magic came a sense of excitement that must have carried back to many of the people working behind the scenes, because it was obvious that there was a high level of passion amongst the people at the better stations. Now, I suspect that most of the people in management positions at these stations think of their transmitter as being little more than a back-up for when the cable goes out.
I also remember the days when TV stations were a major part of their communities...and what happened to those stations was big news. I really saw that as a kid in Tacoma in the mid-to-late seventies. When channel 13 (then KTVW) was forced off the air in 1974, it was on the front page of the News Tribune. When it was sold back into commercial operation five years later, that too was front page news...as was the battle to stop the sale by those who wanted it to remain a public TV station. Can anyone imagine large numbers of people get that excited over a local TV station (or a cable network) today? But then why would they, when those stations are just one more cookie cutter choice amongst a 100 that are churned out by a soulless corporation somewhere back east?
(Yeah, I know that a new station was a bigger deal back in the days when most of us were receiving only five or six channels...but I think that is only part of the difference)